


The Lakehouse

by sprstarinfrance



Series: The Next Nine Months [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, and trying to figure it out, felicity freaking out, tv line blind item 'what if'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-10 12:58:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3291152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprstarinfrance/pseuds/sprstarinfrance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay? No. Not Okay. She was so, so not okay. </p><p>And the only way to deal with this was like a mature adult, which was to hide out in her grandfather’s old hunting cabin, while she ate marshmallow fluff out of a jar with her fingers. </p><p>(A ‘what if’ for that TV LINE Blind Item)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One.

**Author's Note:**

> [So a bunch of people on tumblr (of course tumblr) were speculating ‘what if’ that TV LINE Blind Item was about Olicity last month….well we know now what show it was about but I was trying to think how that would work and… Hart of Dixie season four (ugh, so in love with this season already, specially how they choose to have Zoe deal with it, don’t’ get me started), and all I could see was parallels. Parallel’s everywhere. So I stole some stuff, and threw in some headcanon, like thinking Felicity would freak out a bit…. or a lot. So a majority of this is her freaking out, with some Iris and Barry thrown in, just because. Also, I spilt it in half because it got really long and I’m an asshole.]

Okay?

She was so not okay.

So, So, not okay.

But she wasn’t telling him that.

Actually she wasn’t planning on telling him anything.

Because telling him something, meant she would actually have to form a series of coherent words, and for someone who talked a lot, wasn’t happening, instead avoiding him, glaring, and a lot her loud voice aimed at him was a better option.

A much, much better option.

Okay, sure she felt like a complete bitch afterwards, because it wasn’t completely his fault he didn’t understand why she was acting like a crazy wacko, but she just couldn’t deal with him right now.

Like the other day when he leaned way too close into her personal space, and asked her a little too gruffly for her tastes if she had tracked that guy down.

Like she hadn’t.

Because really.

Did he forget to whom he was speaking?

And she responded by whipping around so hard in her chair that she was surprised she didn’t pull a muscle in her neck, and leveled him a glare she wasn’t aware was possible from her.

To his credit he didn’t move instead just asking her if she was okay.

Really? Was she okay? Did she look okay?

“This,” She gestured around herself, “Is my bubble. So I need you to back up like ten paces away from me.”

She had ignored how hurt he looked as he did want she asked, muttered thank you, and went back to her computer.

Yes, she was annoyed, but she was mostly just annoyed because he just smelled too good, he was completely distracting, and right now her hormones where so messed up she could barely think about anything clearly.

And there was that night when he decided to come back with a stab wound, and she was so upset that she stormed out of the lair instead of hovering over him like she usually did, and refused to acknowledge it the next day.

And there was the afternoon he called her asking if she had a free moment and she all but growled at him, that unless it this was about Arrow business she was too busy to deal with whatever it was. Despite that busy was actually just a pint of mint chocolate chip and a House Hunters International marathon on HGTV because she called off work. _‘Oh I feel so sorry that your beachfront property only has three bedrooms and you are two retired people. Serious why do you need more bedrooms?!_ ’ Although it was quite possible Oliver would have been less annoying then the couples on those stupid realtor shows.

Basically all her options were to act like an angry hulk monster, and even she was getting tired of herself.

There was really only one solution.

She had to get the hell out of Starling City, and far... far away from him.

Felicity had it planned out like it was a mission. She had the time between he went on patrol and got back to the lair timed out. Her suitcase was already in her car, and the moment Oliver and Roy were done, and John left for the day, she would sneak out and hit the road. And hopefully it was before she ran into Oliver and his ‘we need to talk face’ because she really didn’t want to talk right now, and he had been trying to talk to her for days now. Talking? So, so not into talking right now.

Oliver had muttered he was on his way back when John began to pack up for the night. “I’m heading out, see you tomorrow?” He threw over his shoulder.

“Actually.”

He turned around raising his eyes in confusion.

“I’m going to Vegas for a few days.” Felicity didn’t want to lie to John, but if she just left without any warning, her boys would probably go crazy. She just needed a break, not a rescue mission, and more reasons to be in terrible mood right now.

“Really? Did you tell Oliver?”

“I’ll let him know when he gets back.”

“Felicity?”

“Hmmm.”

“Is everything, alright? You’ve been a little strange lately.”

The strange lately he was probably referring to might have been earlier that night when she got in a full out panic about why she wasn’t hungry for Big Belly Burger, that she may have said she was on cracker diet. Roy had sent her a look that clearly stated that he thought she had been body swapped by aliens (because she always ate her BBB), and John asked her if she seriously just suggested she was on some strange fad diet, because she was way too smart for that nonsense.

It wasn’t actually a lie. She was on a cracker diet these days. Any time she tried to eat something else, her body would revolute, basically telling her, nope, can’t eat that, nope, can’t eat that either, but saltines, she could eat those like potato chips.

The fact she tried to backtrack by eating all her fries, which ended with a very predictable trip to the bathroom less then five minutes later, didn’t aid in the crazy diet theory, or Roy and John’s carefully trained eyes on her the rest of the night. Her only saving grace had been that Oliver was having dinner with Thea and hadn’t present during the incident.

Although because it was John that particular weirdness was probably already on a list he was keeping, and dying to ask her the minute she gave him an opening, which she was going to fight him on.

“Stress. Tons of Stress. All the stress all the time.”

Judging by the fact he crossed his arms over his chest, he wasn’t buying any of bullshit she was trying to feed him.

“But I’m good. Awesome really.”

John just raised his eyebrows.

“Okay so there may be a few things I need to deal with, which why I’m taking a couple days off. To deal with them.”

It must have been sincere enough that John let go, “Text me when you get there?”

“Sure.”

As soon as he left she quickly scribed a note on a post-it, and slammed it on her monitor.

_‘Going away for a few days’ -F_

And got the hell out of there.

* * *

 

Vegas had been the original plan, but the minute she got out on the road, the thought of facing her mom became unexplainably unbearable.

There was only one place no one would ever find her.

The lakehouse. Well, it wasn’t technically a lakehouse, more like her grandfather’s old hunting cabin, within walking distance of a lake.

The summer after Felicity’s dad left they had spent a lot of time up there, because Donna Smoak had to get out of Vegas. And for some reason calling the cabin a lakehouse made her feel better, and then it just stuck. Felicity remembered a few more summers up here, before Donna deemed it was too depressing.

Felicity still went up there from time to time, usually in times of crisis. She drove all the way across the country the semester after Cooper died, and spent half of it in a drunken stupor, before she figured out how to move on. She spent two weeks after the Undertakening, feeling sorry for herself before she decided the best action was to find Oliver and drag him back to Starling City.

As soon as she dropped the bag of groceries (or mostly junk food she grabbed while walking though the aisles of the gas station twenty minutes down the road) on the tiny table in the kitchen, she pulled out her phone, disengaged the GPS, and sent the text she promised John.

_‘Safe and sound’ – F._

And then went to fight with the generator.

* * *

 

“Mommy?” She whispered into the phone as she flopped down on the couch, ignoring the dust that flew up and attacked her in the process.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

Felicity sighed as she tried to figure out some way to explain this “So I’m just going about my day, and out of no where, boom, processor. I didn’t ask for this processor, but I have it now anyways. And I haven’t really thought about… “ She paused fiddling with a fray on the couch. “Getting this processor before. I could probably… return it… but it’s this rare… prototype, and there’s a chance that I may never get my hands on it again, because the manufacturer… may go out of business. And… I don’t know if it would make my system better… or if it would cause it to …?”

It was the worst analogy ever.

“I don’t speak tech, but I’m pretty sure that had nothing to do with computers.”

“I’m pregnant.”

The words still felt weird on her lips.

_I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant._

“Felicity, where are you?” She doesn’t answer and she can hear her mother sigh deeply on the other end. “If you say that damn lakehouse…”

“Mom, I’m okay. No one knows about this place, and no one knows I’m here.”

“Come home, baby. We can deal with this here. “

Despite wanting her mother so bad she couldn’t go. If she didn’t deal with it there and then, she wasn’t sure if she would. “I can’t. I need to be here.”

“I don’t like you up there by yourself. If something happens…”

“I promise to text you like fifteen times a day…”

“Felicity…”

“Mom, I need this.”

* * *

 

She found out two weeks previous while in Central City.

Somehow she got roped into a speed-dating thing with Caitlin and Iris. Thankfully, there was a Star Labs problem so Caitlin bailed after picking Felicity up from the train station, and Iris, well, she had a boyfriend so Felicity wasn’t quite sure why she was going in the first place, had something to report on. Barry was single again, and was moping around. So instead of speed-dating she got to spend the night with him… watching terrible TV, and talking about how having a chance to watch terrible TV was something that was absolutely rarity in their lives.

Felicity wasn’t sure what they were even watching; some show about spies or something, but the parallels between her life and the main female lead, who just found out her boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend, because he had just broken up with because a rival spy tried to kill her, was working for some super secret government organization, were just way too close to home for comfort. But that wasn’t important, because he had just broken up with her because his life was dangerous.

His life was dangerous, and he couldn’t be with her because she was someone he cared about.

“You can’t be fucking serious,” Felicity cursed ignoring the strange glance Barry sent her, “You fucking dick!” She didn’t quite remember, but she may have thrown a piece of pizza at the TV.

It was also probably because he had just faked his death.

He died.

He let her think he was dead.

That asshole.

She was suddenly way too invested in this show, and by the time they got to the end of the episode she dropped the beer she was holding, not noticing if it hit the ground or Barry caught it, because of the twist.

The pregnancy twist.

Felicity let out a snort, because as scary accurate to her life this show was, there was no freaking way she was pregnant.

Because she wasn’t.

She had her period last month.

She totally had her period last month.

But she couldn’t remember if she did.

Actually she couldn’t remember the last time she had it.

And she had felt sick for weeks.

“Are you okay?”

Felicity jumped at the sound of Barry’s concerned voice.

“Yeah… it’s just this show, “ she sputtered, ‘is just really stupid. We should change the channel.”

“I’m not a fan either but Iris loves it. She made me…”

Felicity wasn’t playing attention to whatever he’s saying, because she was suddenly running out of the room… and right into Iris.

She was barely aware that she was shaking until Iris directed her to the stairs and sits down next to her, “Hey, what happened?”

The words that come out her mouth are mess of unconnected ramblings, but Iris just rubbed her back, until they fly out without warning, and in a whisper Felicity is surprised Iris even hears. “Pregnant. I think I’m pregnant.”

“Felicity, what happened?” Barry loomed over the two of them concerned, while Iris jumped up and directed him next to her.

“She just got some unexpected news, so just stay here. And I will be right back, okay?”

Felicity nodded still in shock, as Iris turned around and rushed out of the house. Barry just took Iris’s vacant spot, “So…”

Thankfully he didn’t finish it as they ended up sitting there in a awkward silence for twenty minutes until Iris came back, brown bag in hand.

“Barry go away.”

He squinted back at her, “Felicity doesn’t seem…”

“Barry, just get the hell out.”

He doesn’t move, but Iris refuses to let it go. “We’re going to talk about Oliver Queen’s abs and gossip. So go bother your Star Labs friends for an hour.”

“Okay, so you better appreciate this. I accidently ran into Eddie at the drug store and just spent ten minutes trying to convince him that he didn’t need to start planning his funeral.” Iris announced once Barry had finally disappeared. Felicity just started crying, as she gruffly grabbed the bag out of Iris’s hands.

“Okay, that was a terrible joke and… I’m sorry. Felicity… ” Iris muttered, but Felicity was already shaking her head and running to the bathroom. She collapsed on the cold tile, clutching the bag to her chest.

This wasn’t happening. This was absolutely not happening.

Eventually she forced herself to dump the bag upside down, the test chattering to the ground, the sound seeming to echo off the walls.

She could do this.

She had to do this.

Iris waited with her as she held the test in her shaking hands.

Positive.

“Hey,” Iris murmured as Felicity sobbed into her shoulder. “No one has to know. We’ll figure this out.”

She slept on the West’s couch that night. Or rather she tried to sleep, instead spent the night staring at her purse and the ticking bomb contained within.

Thankfully moment she got back to Starling City there wasn’t time for stressing, a series of heavy days balancing work at Palmer Technologies and a series of criminals at night. For awhile she had almost forced herself to forget all about it, until it fell out her purse at work as she tried to find her ringing phone.

No one saw it, but it still took her thirty minutes to calm down.

So she got a blood test at the clinic and it came back positive, unsurprisingly.

So she decided to react the only logical way she could think of, completely freaking the fuck out.


	2. Two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [If there was a chapter title for this it would Felicity storms off a lot. 
> 
> So I had about a third of this written before 3x12 came out and messed everything up, so I had to rewrite it a bit. And then there was real life. Like my dumb job, family, friends, and I guess I actually have to spend some time there even I think its boring. 
> 
> I really wanted to do Oliver's p.o.v. but I couldn't get it to work... so I tried to write it though oblivious Felicity... I guess. I don't know. It's super sappy at the end just because. Well, mostly because this season is draining me. Although 3x14 was so good. Like easily the best episode this season, because I didn't leave it wanting to go on a eight page tumblr rant. Also there has been no Ray for the last three episode, alas, a short lived dream. I don't know if I'm ready for the rest of this season. But at least we have fluffy fanfiction right? 
> 
> Anyways, its done.... unless I write a follow up thingy from Oliver's p.o.v. I kind of already have a drabble involving Felicity's favorite spy drama in mind, I don't know. So heres a thing.]

Felicity woke up face-planted on the dusty couch, yesterdays tears still crusted in her eyes, fumbling for her glasses and phone.

 

She shifted though the rash amount of texts, forty from Ray rambling on about nonsense, nine from her mom, still begging her to come home (or she assumed that’s what her mother was trying say, her mother still didn’t understand texting), a few from Iris checking up on her, one from John asking if she was okay, and ten from Oliver, along with four voicemails that she ignored.

 

 

  _‘Ray, I told you I was on vacation. I don’t have a computer with me.’_

 

_‘I’m still alive, mom. I was sleeping… because it was night time, and that’s what normal people do then.’_

 

‘ _I think I’m okay, I’m still trying to figure it out_. _Thanks for everything Iris_.’

 

 ‘ _I’m FINE, John. See you in a few days_.’

 

 

But she couldn’t figure out what to say Oliver, so she set her phone back down on table.

 

What would she even say to him?

 

_You knocked me up. I’m just trying to process it, so talk soon!_

A frustrated growl irrupted from her, and she wished for a moment that things weren’t always so … _fucked up_ ….with him. Two years of pinning, one fake- but real- love declaration, one date, him pushing her away, him telling her he loved her again, him dying, him not dying, him being a idiot, her pushing him away, lots of yelling, a moment of insanity (or just really good mind blowing sex), followed neither of them really discussing it, her sort of going out with Ray for awhile, her finding out she was pregnant, and now her hiding in a cabin in the middle of nowhere avoiding him.

 

She wasn’t a delusional idiot; a baby wouldn’t make everything between them better. He was still the Arrow, she could still wake up one day and discover he had died again, and where would that leave her? Alone… with a baby.

 

That was even if he wanted a baby. Because he was always so weird around Sara, like really weird, so maybe he didn’t want kids. And she would still be back here… alone with a baby.

 

So if she was going to do this, she was going to have to do this on her own.

 

Did she even want to do this on her own?

 

Did she even want a baby?

 

* * *

 

 

“Mom.”

 

“Oh thank god, baby. I thought something happened to you.”

 

“I was sleeping. I sent you a text.”

 

“You did? I didn’t see one, you know sometimes with this phone…”

 

“Yes… nevermind,” Felicity muttered, never in the mood to deal with her mom’s inability to use her smartphone.  “Was it worth it?”

 

“Was what worth it?”

 

“Me.”

 

There was a long pause before her mother snapped on the other end, “I hope you aren’t seriously asking me this question.”

 

“No… look mom…” Felicity gritted down on her teeth squeezing her eyes shut.

 

“Because there isn’t a universe where I would regret you.”

 

“Yeah, but I was terrible.  I used to blame you for everything. How many times did I tell you that I hated you, just because I knew it would wreck you? That time I told the man at the …”

 

Every single awful thing she remembered saying or doing to her mom came back in a rush, and couldn’t imagine why anyone would have wanted to put up with her as a child, because she had really been just flat out nasty. It had only been within the last year she had really understood everything Donna had done for her, and even now she was causing her mom to cry.

 

“I’m not going to lie and tell you that it didn’t hurt me, but there is nothing you could say or do that would make me hate you. I love you.”

 

“But I …”

 

“Felicity. I can’t tell you what to do, but you, are the absolutely best thing about me. And I’d do everything the same, every time, despite all the heartache, because I don’t want to even imagine a world without you.”

 

“Even dad?”

 

“Especially your father… look,” Donna paused, and Felicity could hear her take a deep breath, “Oliver called me. He’s worried about you. Your friend John, the one with the adorable nugget, gave him my number.”

 

Felicity could feel the blood run out of her face, and she slid down the couch collapsing on the floor, “OMG! Mom, please tell me you didn’t…”

 

“Tell him that you’re pregnant with his baby? No, I told him I knew where you were and that you were okay.”

 

“It’s not…” Felicity whispered, and even though she was on the other side of the country and she couldn’t see her face, she knew her mother was rolling her eyes. “His? Felicity please.” There was another pause on the other end. “You aren’t answering your phone, and I had to tell him you weren’t here. He was on the verge of booking a flight. “

 

“Why would he….”

 

“Baby, that boy is head over heels for you. You don’t want to see him, fine, but at least call him. “

 

“I know he’s in love with me. But it doesn’t mean anything.  It never means anything and it doesn’t change anything. It never changes anything. Mom…. I’ll call you back.”

 

She barely ends the call before the tears.

 

The rest of day was spent trying to fix the ancient TV set, in a fit of avoidance.  Scoffing, she was trying to picture what would have happened if she was in Vegas and he actually showed up.

 

What would he even say?

_‘I need you, but I won’t let myself be with you.’_

_‘I can’t be anything but the Arrow, and I’m going to stay on that track until I end up five feet under and for real this time, but in the mean time let me tell you how much I love you every freaking minute of every freaking day.’_

The antenna snapped off in her hand, just as she started to get a fuzzy picture of the local public access station.

 

She loved him.

 

It was a fact that she tired to so hard to fight, but it was the reality of it, and she had been doomed since the moment he walked into her office with a laptop full of bullet holes.

 

But he left. He always left.

 

And he would sooner choose death over living…

 

Over her.

 

* * *

 

It was sometime between waking up the fourth day at the lakehouse and discovering that she didn’t feel nauseous for the first time in weeks that she somehow just knew.

 

She was having this baby.

 

She was going to be a mom.

 

And to celebrate, she was going to eat that marshmallow fluff she bought three days ago.

 

“Yeah, I’m sorry.” Felicity muttered although she pretty sure that the baby wasn’t listening, or could listen (she couldn’t wait to return to civilization and look it all up), “I’m going to start eating healthy. Right after I eat this, but I’m not giving up my Big Belly Burger, no matter how much I love you.” She lightly poked her stomach, groaning, “Oh, no more coffee. I forgot about that.”

 

After failing at trying to find a spoon she just shrugged as she stuck her fingers in. “This is so good, I’m so totally eating the whole jar. Wow, terrible parenting, already feeding you all this sugar. Although I’m pretty sure the whole jumping off the walls thing is in the cards either way, especially considering who your father is.”

 

_Father._

 

She still had to deal with that.

 

Tomorrow. She would deal with that tomorrow, instead today she was eating this marshmallow fluff, and attempt to watch the broken TV. Even if it was just basically just white noise with the occasionally flicker of a dog show. Putting off a conversion her mind wanted to have about getting her future offspring a pet, because it had just started cooking, that was something that was way off in the distant. She had more important things to consider really. Like how this would work with… well work, both jobs considered. She should probably make a doctors appointment and…

 

Despite her sticky fingers and the fact she just smeared the fluff across her face she picked up the phone to call her mom.

 

“So, congrats, grandma.”

 

There was no answer on the other end just what sounded like hysterical crying.

 

“I’m going to take that as good crying.”

 

“Oh, it’s good crying. Definitely good crying,” Her mother finally whispered. “I’m so excited.”

 

“Me too.” Felicity found herself smiling for the first time since she found out. “You aren’t going to be one of those weird grandmothers who insist the kid calls you Nana Donna or something? Because that isn’t happening.”

 

“Oh, no, I will be called grandma and nothing else… but we need to talk about…”

 

The smile slowly drained off her face, “Mom, not this again.”

 

The ‘not this again’ being of course, Oliver, and her mother’s need to bring him up in every conversion she had with her for the past two days.

 

“Listen to me, “ Donna said with a force Felicity hadn’t heard from her in ages, not since Cooper had taken them earlier in the year, “After your father left I was a mess, and I let that control me for years. I can’t tell you what will happen tomorrow, but Felicity, we can choose to be happy today.  You can’t keep pushing him away. I know you keep thinking he will leave you, but baby, he’s not your father and he’s not going anywhere.”

 

“You don’t know that,” Felicity growled into the phone, knowing her mom thought this was about her freaking abandonment issues, and it was much more then that, but she couldn’t tell her mother her baby daddy was the Arrow, and that came with a whole suitcase of other issues. “It’s much more complicated then that…”

 

“It really isn’t. Felicity, you can’t keep…”

 

Felicity doesn’t really hear the rest of what her mom is saying because she can hear the faint sound of a motorcycle, freezing before someone was walking up the porch stairs.

 

“Mom please tell me you didn’t…” She hissed just as she opened the door to Oliver mid-knock glaring at him, “I’m going to murder you.”

 

“Is that directed at me… or.” He gestured at her phone, attempting to joke, but Felicity refused to turn off her glare.

 

“I’m not quite sure at the moment. Mom, we will be having words,” She hung up the phone stalking back into the cabin, not even bothering to see if he’s following her. Instead she slammed the phone on the table, and returned to couch and her marshmallow fluff angrily.

 

She could feel him stilling behind her, before he awkwardly walked around the couch standing in front of her, sending a her questioning look over the marshmallow all over her fingers and probably in her hair at this point. Instead she just ignored it. 

 

“What exactly did she tell you? Did she tell you I was pregnant?”

 

No, she hadn’t apparently, judging from the complete look of shock on his face.  

 

“Look, don’t worry about it,” She pushed past not even giving him a moment to catch up, “I’m doing this by myself. There is absolutely no reason for you to even think about it.”

 

“Felicity, “He murmured sounding so broken, but she couldn’t look him in the face, because any resolve she had would break, “Please.”

 

She didn’t care what he was pleading for, because she couldn’t deal with this right now. “No. No.” She stood up not even sure she knew what she was doing right now, trying to fight down the panic and rage, “I’m fine, as you can see. There was no reason to drive all the way up here.”

 

She shut her eyes trying to keep the tears away.

 

“Felicity, please, just look at me.” She felt his hands on her shoulders.

 

She couldn’t breathe.

 

“Can we please just talk about this?”

 

“No,” She hissed poking him in the chest hard still avoiding looking at him directly in the eyes, “Because us talking never ends in anything good. It usually just ends in you walking away. Or you dying. And I’m tired, of it. It’s exhausting… and there is no point because it’s only going to end one way right? So I can’t… I’m done. I’m done with you.”

 

Shoveling him out of the way she stormed out of the cabin, and down the path to lake.

 

It wasn’t supposed be like this. She wasn’t supposed to let back him back into her heart after he came back. She told him she didn’t want to be a woman he loved, and that was it. She was supposed to move on with her life, and definitely not sleep with him.

 

But her heart and brain were much like her mouth and brain, and apparently couldn’t function together.

 

They were fighting, because, well, she was pretty sure that dying must have made him stupider, and she never shed away from telling him that he had his head up his ass. And frankly she wasn’t going to help him get himself killed again, not after she had just got him back, especially not over Malcolm Merlyn’s latest mess.

 

She may have muttered, “Just go get yourself killed again, see if I care,” before storming out of the lair.

 

Felicity tried to go home, and tried to go to sleep but the guilt she felt for even uttering those words wouldn’t go away, and instead of calling him like a normal person and apologizing, she found herself knocking on his door at two a.m.

 

Thankfully Thea didn’t answer, because that would have been awkward, not that a shirtless slightly tousled looking Oliver was any less awkward.

 

“I didn’t mean it, that I wouldn’t care if you died again, because I would. I really would, and I don’t even know why I said it…”

 

 She was crying, and sobbing into his chest.

 

“I know,” He whispered into her hair, “It’s okay.”

 

She couldn’t remember who started it but she remembered she was the one who murmured, “No talking,” to his, “Felicity we shouldn’t….”

 

And they didn’t really talk unless gasping his name and screaming ‘fuck’ was actually considering talking, not that she did, well that … definitely was not talking.  

 

Waking up in his arms would normally have been a dream come true if she wasn’t already late for work and reality hadn’t hit her hard. Thankfully he didn’t wake up as she detangled herself from him, and made the inventible walk of shame in last night’s clothes, and hoping to hell no one would notice.

 

So she decided that when she got to the lair later that night she wasn’t going to acknowledge it, because she wasn’t in the mood for one of his stupid speeches, and those always followed whenever he let his guard down, then realized he had to backtrack.

 

Thanks to Laurel and some new criminal to track down it made the task much easier, although he did catch her arm at the end of the night.

 

“Felicity.” He pleaded, “Can we talk?”

 

“It didn’t happen, gotcha,” Felicity muttered back, trying not to let the fact his thumb was still brushing her wrist. Although all she wanted to do was jump him again, she had to stand firm on this, or she would keep falling into these dangerous patterns with him, and sleeping with him had been the worst idea she had.

 

“What?… no, that’s not…” Oliver rushed out, that familiar look of guilt across his face.

 

“It’s fine, I know you. This is part where you say a bunch of crap, and then take it back. I can’t bare to hear it. So this,” She pulled her wrist harshly out his grasp as she backed out of the lair, “Is me avoiding you breaking my heart yet again, and walking away.”

 

Then Ray asked her out for dinner the next day, and she said yes before she realized what she actually said yes to. She could have taken it back, but later decided maybe this was the first step in trying to get over Oliver Queen. Not that her Ray got really much further then a few dinners and one awkward make out session due to work before she called it off after she found out she was pregnant.

 

For some reason she thought having a pseudo-boyfriend would get Oliver to back off, but strangely he was even attentive then he had been in months, almost acting like he did before their doomed first and only date. He was touching her again, smiling when she starting rambling, bringing her coffee, and well the list went on.

 

When she joked with John about Oliver being on drugs, he merely just snorted at her, “Really? If you don’t know what he’s doing then I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

 

But she really didn’t, and after the Arrow and Atom got into a fight, and Oliver found out she had been helping Ray she finally figured it out.

 

“I’m not a fire hydrant!”

 

“What?” Oliver did that weird confused face thing that she normally found kind of cute, if she wasn’t so blind furious at him.

 

“This weird possession thing…. So I start dating someone, and you start with flirty-flirt again? Because you called this off… so you have no right to…”

 

“You’re dating Ray?” He repeated back at her, some strange look she couldn’t identify, something along the lines of complete misery and surprise, not that she was really understanding why he would be, because he had already knew right?

 

“Yes, I meant it when I said I didn’t want to be a woman you loved… so this,” She gestured between them, “Is only Arrow related now.”

 

He didn’t answer her, just nodding before he disappeared to the bathroom.

 

Needless to say things had been very awkward after that, border-lining on slightly hostile, on her part, a month and half later.

 

* * *

 

 

Felicity hugged herself against the March breeze as she paced along the edge of the lake, cursing herself for not planning this storm off better. She hadn’t sure how long she been down there, when she felt something being draped over her shoulders. She didn’t even have to glance back because she already knew he was there, and it wasn’t just because his jacket smelled like him. She would have felt him either way.

 

She was scared, more scared about anything else in her life, not even Slade, Malcolm Merlyn, or even Ra’s al Ghul, could terrify her as much as loving Oliver Queen did. And it was more that loving him was dangerous, more then the fact he could die any day, more then the fact that he could be completely idiotic, but it was it was the fact he wouldn’t even try to live his life, that sometimes he went completely out of the way to avoid it, because he deserved so much more. 

 

“I’m not letting you walk away anymore,” He said softly, as she finally turned around.

 

She nodded, snuggling into his jacket more, as he took a few steps closer, his hand doing the nervous tick she was so used to.

 

“Everything’s changed… and not because your…” He paused looking at her seriously, “It changed that…. I mean I came up here before I knew that and I just…”

 

He was rambling. Oliver Queen didn’t ramble, except when he asked her out on that date earlier in the year, and the look he had was the same one he had when he told her the pen was red. He was so rarely in these moments…  

 

And of course that was the moment her stomach decided to violently revolt again, and she barely pushed him away before she lost it.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” He murmured bending down next to her.

 

“I really wanted that marshmallow fluff,” She pouted, as he snorted.

 

“I think you have enough in your hair.”

 

Felicity attempted to glare at him but it wasn’t working. “I thought it was finally going away, and I could finally eat real food. I’ve been dreaming of Big Belly Burger for the last week.”

 

“Is this normal?”

 

“I think so… I mean I haven’t gone to the doctors yet… I just got a blood test last week. I probably should… go to the doctors. I’ve been just solely focused on… freaking out,” She laughed back nervously at the look of fear on his face. “Which I’m not sure is never going to go away, because, hello parenthood, but I’ll go to doctors when I get back, promise.”

 

“I’ll go with you.”

 

He was completely serious, she knew that much. But Felicity wasn’t sure what do with that, and before she had a chance to stop herself the wrong words erupted from her mouth, “You don’t want kids.”

 

Oliver sighed deeply, joining her on the ground, “I never said that.”

 

“Yeah, but how do kids fit into your broody, ‘I can only be the Arrow forever and ever, alone in my own misery?”

 

“I don’t sound like that.”

 

She smiled to his ‘I’m trying not be amused right now but I sort of am’ face, “You kind of do.”

 

“Trust me, I’m working on it….” Oliver paused before shutting his eyes briefly, “Before the island I was almost an father. I wasn’t ready then or I didn’t know if I wanted to be, but there was this moment after Sara was born and I realized I wanted it.”

 

“Kids… a family?”

 

“Yeah, but I only want it with you.”

 

Okay, that wasn’t a revelation she wasn’t prepared for, so she couldn’t do anything but stare back at him in shock.

 

One of his hands made its way up her neck, his thumb brushing across her jaw line. “I love you and I will do anything to make this work. I’ll hang up the hood if I have to.”

 

“Okay… “ She muttered back still trying to process what he had said, nearly missing him solemnly nodding his head.

 

“No! I mean, no, that’s not what I want, and I would sort of be a hypocrite because I don’t want to give up helping the hood… I just want you… and I want you to want to be you. I know you insist on seeing yourself as these two separate people, and you can’t be both at the same time but I’ve never seen you that way, you actually didn’t make sense to me until I found out you were the Arrow…”

 

He cut her off, and she was finally kissing him, really kissing him. This time without him already mentally walking away, and she somehow just knew that everything would be different this time.

 

“Okay,” he muttered into her lips.

 

“Okay, what?”

 

“Okay, I’ll be Oliver Queen.”

 

“You better be sure, because this baby has no use for arrows, and we should probably keep it away from them for….”

 

He chuckled, before shutting her up again.

 

She knew they still had a lot of things to talk about, a lot of a lot things, but that could totally wait until after she made out with him…. and away from where she just puked would probably be a good start.


End file.
